Scott Detrow

Scott Detrow is a political correspondent for NPR. He covers the 2020 presidential campaign and co-hosts the NPR Politics Podcast.

Detrow joined NPR in 2015. He reported on the 2016 presidential election, then worked for two years as a congressional correspondent before shifting his focus back to the campaign trail.

Before that, he worked as a statehouse reporter in both Pennsylvania and California, for member stations WITF and KQED. He also covered energy policy for NPR's StateImpact project, where his reports on Pennsylvania's hydraulic fracturing boom won a DuPont-Columbia Silver Baton and national Edward R. Murrow Award in 2013.

Detrow got his start in public radio at Fordham University's WFUV. He graduated from Fordham, and also has a master's degree from the University of Pennsylvania's Fels Institute of Government.

Before the first presidential debate last month, former Vice President Joe Biden's campaign signaled that he expected to be attacked by the candidates trailing him in the polls but that Biden would essentially ignore all incoming fire.

It was a classic front-runner approach. And it was punctured, hard and fast, by California Sen. Kamala Harris' attack on Biden's past opposition to federal busing policies.

President Trump has made undoing the Obama Administration's foreign policy record one of his top priorities. So it's no surprise that former Vice President Joe Biden — who played a key role in implementing now-abandoned agreements like the Paris climate agreement and the Iran nuclear deal, sees Trump's foreign policy as a disaster.

When I think of Bud Selig, I always think about one particular moment.

It's the 11th inning of the 2002 All-Star Game. The event was held in Selig's hometown Milwaukee, in the beautiful new ballpark he and his family spent a decade fighting to get built. But instead of reveling in what should have been one of the greatest moments of his life, the Major League Baseball commissioner was frustrated, angry and holding his hands out in an exasperated shrug.

Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren spent most of the spring as the Democratic presidential hopeful on the rise.

Her poll numbers steadily ticked up, as she carved out a spot as a policy-focused candidate whose weekly plan rollouts set much of the broader campaign agenda.

The momentum translated to fundraising. Warren took in $19.1 million in April, May and June — more than three times what her campaign raised during the first quarter of 2019, according to her campaign Monday.

One of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders's most animated moments in Thursday night's Democratic debate came after California Rep. Eric Swalwell urged voters to "pass the torch" to a new generation of leaders.

Swalwell's critique was aimed at former Vice President Joe Biden. But despite the fact that Sanders has been increasingly critical of Biden's policy positions, the independent Senator tried to rush to his fellow septuagenarian's defense. "As part of Joe's generation, let me respond," he urged the moderators in the middle of a candidate free-for-all.

The day after former Vice President Joe Biden recalled his "civil" and productive working relationships decades ago with two longtime segregationist and racist fellow lawmakers, fellow Democrats are pouncing.

At a New York City fundraiser Tuesday night, Biden told donors he has reached across the aisle throughout his career. "I was in a caucus with James O. Eastland," Biden said, according to a pool report. "He never called me 'boy'; he always called me 'son.' "

"Nations, to make sense of themselves, need some kind of agreed-upon past," Jill Lepore writes in her latest book, This America: The Case for the Nation. "They can get it from scholars or they can get it from demagogues."

The past few presidential campaigns, environmental activists have "been left begging for there to be a single question at a campaign debate about climate change," longtime climate change activist and author Bill McKibben recently told NPR.

Eight Democratic presidential candidates faced the same basic question today in Houston: Why should women of color vote for them?

The first-ever She The People Presidential Forum — organized by and centered on questions from women of color — served as a repeated reminder of the key role that minority women play in Democratic politics.

We are awaiting the release of special - the release of special counsel Robert Mueller's report sometime later this morning, and we'll be covering that throughout the day. What we do have so far is a press conference that ended just a short while ago.

It has been roughly 22 months since special counsel Robert Mueller began his investigation into the 2016 election. Along the way, he's charged 34 people, including 25 Russians. More than seven have been found guilty of crimes.

Most job openings — at least in theory — go to the more qualified applicant. That isn't always the case with the presidency of the United States, as scores of presidential losers have discovered.

Given the choice, Americans tend to gravitate toward the fresher, more exciting face. Charisma and change can hold more value than on-the-job training, relationships with world leaders or understanding of congressional dynamics.

Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders released 10 years' worth of tax returns Monday. The documents underscore how much money the populist presidential candidate has earned in recent years, as his public profile has risen.

In an interview with the New York Times before the returns were made public, Sanders dismissed the idea that his newfound wealth undercut his billionaire-bashing message.

Conan O'Brien once memorably described Robert Caro's sweeping series of biographies about Lyndon Baines Johnson as Harry Potter for adults. But perhaps the better comparison is the nonfiction version of George R.R. Martin's A Song of Ice And Fire.

The majority of the Democrats running for president want to create a national health insurance program. Several want to do away with private health insurance entirely. Candidates are engaging on questions about reparations for slavery, and most of the White House hopefuls have endorsed the goal of a carbon-neutral economy within the next decade.

Increase the size of the U.S. Supreme Court? Several candidates are now on board.

It seems like every time you turn around, a Democrat running for president is on cable news or here on NPR staking out a pretty radical position. Last night on CNN, it was Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren.

Looking out over a crowd of firefighters chanting, "Run, Joe, run," former Vice President Joe Biden urged patience.

"Save it a little longer; I may need it in a few weeks," he said, adding, "Be careful what you wish for."

Biden isn't officially running for president — at least not yet — but Tuesday's speech to the International Association of Fire Fighter's annual conference blocks from Capitol Hill served as the latest warmup act to a potential 2020 campaign.

Most of the Democrats running for president want to create a national single-payer health care system. They want to begin a massive transition from fossil fuels to clean energy. They want to legalize marijuana, pass broad family leave policies, and do a whole lot of other things that previous generations of presidential candidates have balked from fully endorsing.